Mister Dilsby

V1.0 will bring a revamped tech tree and likely lots of other stuff that will make starting over in Career mode the choice for many seasoned Kerbal space program managers. But if you're like me, there are some things in your V0.90 save file that you simply must have intact in V1. Me, I'm keeping my asteroids. I have a class-E in orbit around Minmus and have not gotten around to building a base on it yet. And I can't give up my class-A lawn ornament, shown here. Besides serving to inspire new recruits at Kerbfleet Academy, it is a convenient targetable marker for ships returning to KSC. I'll also keep my Kerbals, unless the training system is so thoroughly revamped it makes sense not to. Once everyone comes home from the various kerbed space stations and interplanetary missions, I'll delete all the ships, debris, flags etc, every part in the game except the two asteroids. Then hopefully I can get the save file to work in V1 with the crew roster and asteroids intact. Possible snags in this approach include the cost of hiring new Kerbals if I already have a bunch of guys on the roster, and if Squad dropped a barn or a trailer on the same spot where I put my lawn ornament. So how about the rest of you? Starting fresh, keeping everything, or attempting some sort of hybrid like me?

That's awesome klesh! I remember some friends of mine going to that concert too. Old school cassette for the win! Did you get to go inside the ship? First time I saw it was with my wife & kids. We stopped for a picnic after the drive from NY and noticed the ship "crashed" up in the catwalk. We hadn't been inside yet or read anything about it so we didn't know what it was or if it was even part of the museum. So my daughter and I climbed up and explored it, not quite sure whether we were supposed to. Going inside and finding the abandoned instruments, notebooks etc we started to piece together the backstory. It was really neat to discover the whole thing for ourselves without any meta-explanation.

Send another ship, duh. But learn to fly better or else this:

And now the service missions are complete. I used both spaceplane and conventional tankers, and brought up a new rover and mission crew in a second type spaceplane. These postings are now up to date with the actual mission. Next step is to boost the Wasabi Maru into a higher orbit for departure, so that we can get a reasonably short ejection burn on the high efficiency but low thrust LV-N main engines.

Well, now I have to make a model don't I

I rage-crash $300,000 drone tankers after realizing I don't have enough gyros and will have to expend monopropellant to steer in orbit.

Well done, have some rep. Good thing you got this out of the way before v1.0, your "pipe organ" would likely play a minor key fugue with the new aero model

Ok, just one more--I have never completed ther Eve Rocks challenge and it's time to do it. Jeb is still in solar orbit trying to intercept Moho, as he has been for at least a year now. The other orange suits and all the *** pilots are still waiting for a window to come back from Duna. So it's up to Kerbfleet's bench to pull this one off. The ships: EVORAMA 180t lander/ascent vehicle: ~10500 surface dV crew of one Kerbin SSTO capable parachute landing, Eve ascent on 6xaerospikes and one KS-25x4 KSS WASABI MARU: 150t interplanetary cruiser 4x LV-N main engines with 2x aerospike auxiliary towing boom, cargo bay, sweet running lights The plan is to launch both ships, dock in orbit, refuel, and catch the next window to Eve. Then Wasabi Maru will drop a rover to the surface to scout a good landing site. Evorama will follow, then hopefully return one Kerbonaut to the Wasabi for the trip back home. At this writing the mission is still in progress and I do not know if it will succeed. Here's an album featuring the two main ships. Enjoy! Next installment will give an idea of the service missions to refuel the ships, and to fix a couple of Kraken-related problems.

Went to Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MOCA) today, and though you all might like this exhibit. It's called "All Utopias Fell", and it looks very much to me like a crashed Kerbal spaceship (modded, of course): You can see the solar panels of course and the collapsed parachutes (which are, apparently, persistent in this version). The interior was closed today, but I've been inside before and it's freaky. Exploring it you can find notebooks and other left-behind items that give some clues of who built the spaceship, why, and how it came to crash where it did. More on the art here: http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=547

VERY excited--the Evorama Mk1 Lander/Ascent vehicle and KSS Wasabi Maru are in Kerbin orbit, tanked up and ready to go. I just need to send up my cargo plane to deliver a replacement rover (first one got Kraken'd) and the mission crew, and I am ON for this challenge! ...from left to right, the Evorama, the Wasabi Maru, and the final drone tankship.

Then maybe the thing to do is help him out, gentlemen. That's the Kerbal way. OP, it sounds like you mean you want the ships to come from orbit, impact the surface, and survive without benefit of lifting surfaces, parachutes, or retrorockets--basically drop a crewed brick from orbit and see what can survives. Yes? You might want to think about a way to rank entries. Mass might be a good one: what's the minimum amount of hardware you can use and still survive? Also maybe specify which capsules/cockpits/cans are acceptable. For example the Mk3 cockpit has a VERY high tolerance, maybe enough to hit Eve surface at terminal velocity. I'd make everyone do it in a Mk1 lander can if it were me This is not a bad challenge at all if properly specified. It'll teach entrants about terminal velocity and design for survivability. I'd encourage the OP to try a few crash landings himself, think a bit about how entrants are going to try to bend/break/exploit, and come up with a short ruleset and ranking system that makes it fun for everyone.

^Was just going to say the same thing. Sorry, but this one isn't going to make it... Tylo is a real challenge, you need 6000m/s dV to get up and back, and a high enough thrust as well. I like to have 1.2-1.5 TWR myself: see http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Cheat_sheet for a map giving delta V requirements to and from everywhere. Good luck! This mission isn't a total loss, you're a better designer and pilot now for having tried this a few different ways.

He doesn't have the Poodle staged in (display shows 120kN available from the two LV-Ns). Hopefully that's on an action group or he can stage it in, then he'll have 340kN available. Hm. Hey OP, when you descended on Mechjeb was the Poodle online?

Hear hear.. "Turn off your targeting computer!" And yeah, that's a very high orbit to come down from, you are giving Tylo lots of time to accelerate you. Mechjeb might have an easier time landing you from a lower orbit, say 20km or so--but I really do encourage you to try it manually. You might burn a bit more fuel than the autopilot would, but you'll be a better pilot afterwards.

Indeed. I was thinking about this some more, and the easiest way by far must be to intercept in solar SOI and nudge toward Duna aerocapture. Remember, it costs over 1000dV to go from Kerbin SOI to Duna, and a ship the size of the Kranefly can only give a Class E about 150m/s before needing a refuel. If you pick the right asteroid it should be possible to hit Duna on one tank...IF you pick the right asteroid. The trouble is that you can't play around with patched conics and maneuver nodes to get an intercept solution until you have an active ship in similar orbit or attached to the asteroid. If I were to do this (and I am in the middle of tanking up for an Eve attempt, so no probably not until after 1.0) I might send a bunch of fast drones to scout some asteroids between Kerbin and Duna; drag maneuver nodes until I find a promising candidate, then dispatch a Kranefly to finish the job. - - - Updated - - - Yes, this works, but the asteroid's momentum WILL swing it around considerably... in my experience the oscillations will damp out in a reasonable time, provided you are not trying to correct by more than a few degrees at a time.

Couple of comments: --You probably have more engines than you need for the mass of that craft. A good rule is one turbojet for every 8-12 tons. --You may not have enough intakes. Some people like to "airhog", I think 1 ram air or shock cone +2 big radial intakes per engine, or the equivalent, is a good number. --Your center of lift is way at the back which could be the reason you're having trouble on takeoff. Moving the wings forward should help: putting canards on the front may help even more. Be careful where your center of mass is relative to COL, of course, and be sure that your COM is still forward of COL when the tanks are empty (you can check this in the SPH by right-clicking and temporarily emptying the tanks) There are some very good comprehensive guides out there, but you will learn faster and IMO have more satisfaction if you just fly the ship and pay attention to what goes wrong. Then with a little thinking and maybe some help here on the Forum you will get a real deep understanding. Good luck!

Well this explains a lot about why my large spaceplanes always need tuning for placement of the rocket engine... I went crazy for a while, "perfectly" snapping mainsails or whatnot on the axis only to find that the rocket thrust would flip the ship over once it was high enough that aero control surfaces couldn't compensate. Standard practice for me now is to work in sandbox, hyperedit to deep space and thrust every engine to confirm straight line... SPH gizmos very helpful of course to get it right.

You're welcome. I'd encourage you to see what you can do with the asteroid you have, and yes to try and improve on the Kranefly. I daresay you'll learn a lot that way. If you really do want to get an asteroid to Duna, think hard about the dV involved... you now have some idea of how much dV you can put on a large rock with a reasonably sized towship. You also know something about the challenges of steering a large rock. If you can manage your goal, that will be a very rep-worthy mission report. Come to think of it, I might try and drag a class-E to Duna myself with the Kranefly, just to show it can be done

You mean you're trying to steer a 3000t asteroid using RCS and reaction wheels? Um, maybe someone else's ship can do that, but mine certainly cannot. Best practice here is to set your maneuver node, undock, then fly the ship to redock with the asteroid such that you are aimed in the correct direction to pull the asteroid on course. Then be certain to set the klaw for 'free pivot' and thrust away.

This one is I think a very good idea. A high elliptical orbit would keep the asteroid and hauler within range for easy refueling (if needed), but minimize fuel cost on the transfer to Duna.

Well you know you won't get an "encounter" like the ones you get for a planet or moon, right? You can only get an "intercept" since the asteroid is a Part that has no gravity. That said--how far along are you getting before giving up? When I do it, I typically start looking for an intercept once reaching solar SOI, on a parallel course with the target rock.

A ready-to-fly hauler capable of intercepting and towing a Class E asteroid: ...full album and craft file here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/114595-A-BadS-Asteroid-Hauler-the-Kranefly-Mk-E

EVE, alarm clock, hyperedit (for sandbox only!) Kerbal Engineer. I don't use part mods as I like playing the same game as most people I meet on the Forum, and I much prefer piloting myself to running Mechjeb.

Once you've 'solved' KSP, IMO the thing to do is build up your kerbals' presence in the solar system to fit your imagination of what a proper spacefaring society should have. For me, it's like building a model railroad. I put big stations in various orbits, land bases, then create a fleet of ships designed to use those facilities. Now it's not just about getting somewhere, it's about getting there in style with a mature space transport system. For example: rather than launch a single multistage rocket for a Mun landing/return mission, I deliver crew to my LKO station in a small SSTO designed for the purpose, transfer them to the intermunar shuttle, bring that to the Munstation, "check out" a lander from the pool, go visit an arch or the memorial, back to the station, take the shuttle back to Kerbin orbit and catch the next outgoing SSTO to home. Anyway, that (and challenges) are what keeps it fun for me.

You marked the thread "answered"--does that mean it worked?